'Against the Wall,' Former Border Patrol Agent's Memoir
The journey from Border Patrol agent to staunch defender of migrants and immigrants.
(NOTE: This post contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised.)
On the surface,
’s memoir, Against the Wall, is an exposé of the thoroughly corrupt Border Patrol told by a former agent, but really, it’s a psychological examination of how human beings pay trauma forward. You may come to see how the immigration enforcement sausage is made, to get the dirt on the Border Patrol, to look through the window into their lurid excesses and egregious transgressions, and lord knows there is plenty of that, but you’ll stay for Budd’s unflinching reckoning with her past.When I first came across Budd here on Substack, I wondered how a former Border Patrol agent had come to be an immigrant rights activist. People don’t change so drastically out of the blue, I thought. Something must have happened. Something bad. I wanted to understand what drove that change. In a time when xenophobia and far-right extremism are on the rise, I’m drawn to people who manage such a turnabout. I hoped to find the blueprint in her book.
What’s a tonk?
“Tonc” or “tonk” is a Border Patrol term for migrants—not just any migrants, but migrants from Latin America. Brown migrants. The public-facing party-line definition of the term was Temporarily Out of Native Country or True Origin Not Known, but the real definition is grisly. It’s the sound an agent’s standard-issue six-battery heavy-duty Maglite flashlight makes when they crack a migrant with it.
Tonk!
As if the onomatopoeia might suddenly pop up in a colorful graphic on-screen during an action sequence in the 1960s Batman TV series. That such a jokey term was bandied about for brutal violence is grim and provides insight into the BP agent’s mentality.
Budd once tonked a young man. She was alone with a group of migrants, her back against a steep drop that could’ve killed her had she fallen over, with backup on the way. As she struggled to maintain order, the young man defied her commands, so she tonked him. She had started to vent her frustrations on migrants.
“I found myself taking it out on the migrants from time to time, screaming and belittling them when my patience was running thin.”
Targeted for being a woman and a lesbian
Taking abuse doesn’t give one the right to dish it out to others, but it’s important to acknowledge the context of trauma to understand the abuse it cultivates. What Budd endured at the Border Patrol would’ve felled most others. At the end of training academy, a fellow cadet raped her. That was her orientation. Was he arrested or disciplined? No. He suffered no consequences. Instead, Budd bore the brunt of the rape’s aftermath, branded with a stigma that followed her at every posting.
Every morning at Campo Station, the women’s toilet brimmed with shit, thanks to Budd’s fellow agents. Her station mail drawer would be full of used condoms and pictures of spreadeagled women. Later, a greenhorn agent tried to run her over with his truck, possibly to ingratiate himself to a superior who had it out for Budd. She had to leap out of the way to avoid being run over. The truck still clipped her, leaving her in crutches for months. I’m no legal expert, but that seems like attempted homicide to me.
This wasn’t Budd’s first rodeo. She grew up with abuse. Her mother was volatile and drowning in booze. She berated and hit Budd, then turned around and cried and asked for forgiveness. Budd’s father failed to protect his daughter, opting instead to stay away for long periods of time “at work” (read: having affairs), which only further embittered her mother.
This kind of trauma, if left unconfronted, has a habit of rearing its head over and over. Budd acknowledges as much:
“There was a part of me that understood why he always left. I had done the same thing, after all. I escaped to college and migrated all the way across the country, crossing state border after state border just to get away from her. It was simply easier than addressing the problem.” (p.197)
Assassination attempt or warning?
Confronting her trauma began with leaving the Border Patrol. Sure, Budd worked her way up, made some friends, and built a career, but the hypocrisy of the Border Patrol became increasingly inescapable.
BP agents drank and took drugs. Some of them smuggled the stuff. They used their authority to coerce migrant women to have sex with them. They beat migrants because they could. They went to brothels in Tijuana that were probably run by cartel. Many of them were abusive, substance-addled, violent, and corrupt. These were bad men, or at least weak men who turned bad, although, I suppose, what’s the difference?
She realized the truth about migrants: They weren’t dangerous criminals, as she’d been told as a trainee. The vast majority of them were either families looking for a better life or men looking for work. Border Patrol agents were much more likely to commit a crime. Budd saw it with her own eyes.
The last straw was discovering that a PAIC (Patrol Agent in Charge) was coordinating with the cartel to smuggle drugs across the border. After Budd blew the whistle, said PAIC orchestrated a hit job, or at least a threat, whereby Budd, alone on patrol at night in the desert, was fired upon. Shortly after the incident, the agent in question arrived, thereby consummating the warning.
“I heard over the radio that you were getting shot at, and no one responded. So, I thought come out to see if you’re OK,” PAIC Dirtycop said with a smile. “Have you learned your lesson? They might not miss next time.” (p.169)
Suicide attempt and the reckoning
The trauma that had accumulated from childhood through her stint at Border Patrol reached a breaking point. She tried to kill herself, and had her wife not gone out looking for her, she would’ve succeeded. Budd’s gruesome suicide attempt prompted some soul searching, helped along by an appointed therapist. Budd came to realize she had “left one abusive family for another.” (p.216) Perhaps the greater epiphany was that in spite of what happened to her, she was still responsible for her actions.
“My walls and all my running did not prevent me from becoming an abuser myself. This was perhaps the hardest revelation I had to contend with. I had been cruel and abusive to my wife and others at times. My past did not excuse me from my anger, from my abusive behavior…I had to accept responsibility for this.” (p.216)
And boy did she accept responsibility—in deed and word.
She has become one of the fiercest defenders of migrants and immigrants, vehemently railing against BP, CBP, and ICE. She works with and raises money for Humane Borders, an organization that installs water barrels and water stations along the border in Arizona, which can be lifesaving for migrants and Border Patrol agents alike, especially in remote desert areas. Much of Budd’s subscription revenue goes toward Humane Borders, so supporting Budd’s work also means supporting Humane Borders. Subscribe to her newsletter here.
And all the while, she hasn’t let herself off the hook. She doesn’t sugarcoat what she did or why she did it. She’s ruthless in her self-assessment.
“Once in the Border Patrol, once I became an agent and heard the racist terms and witnessed the brutality aimed at migrants of color, once I understood the laws that the laws and policies I enforced were racist, once I became comfortable with racist names, once I hit a young man on the shoulder with a flashlight—I became a white supremacist too.” (p.234)
She laments not being strong enough to do the right thing at the time.
“I was not brave enough to stand up against what I witnessed. Worse than that, I did not just sit on the sidelines. I chose to wear the green uniform…I made justifications and chose to stay for six years.” (p.234)
Budd connected with Christian Ramírez, the human rights director at Alliance San Diego. She told him her story as an agent, and she listened to the stories of migrants. She realized she hadn’t considered the other side, a realization that made her uncomfortable, but she didn’t shrink from it. She leaned into it.
“I realized the discomfort was what I needed, and I found myself drawn to spend more time with it.” (p.238)
It’s clear that Budd carries a lot of guilt, but she doesn’t seem interested in unloading it. She doesn’t appear to seek redemption. In a conversation with Hiram Soto, the communications director at Alliance, she reflected on her post-agency efforts:
“Doesn’t absolve me of my past. It shouldn’t. That guilt is important to me…” (p.257)
The blueprint
I’m not sure I found the blueprint for deradicalization in Budd’s book, but I think I found the recipe for change. It demands an honest accounting of one’s actions and misdeeds. You have to face the truth of what you’ve done.
The other piece is ego. You have to leave it behind. Budd is right in not seeking redemption because such motivation glorifies the attempt. The goal shouldn’t be to be a better person, because that’s about you. The goal should be to do good things, because that’s about others.
I don’t know if this approach has made Budd happier—I hope it has—but I suspect it has made her a good person, whether she likes to admit it or not.
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Wow. 🥹
Thanks for this article. I had been curious and at the same time, not ready to hear about the evil. I have been exposed to too much of it already.
I think what I admire most is that she acknowledges that neither her past trauma or her marginalized identities absolves or excuses what she does. This is really critical. The tendency to evade accountability and blame authoritarian, abusive, or otherwise evil behavior by pointing to systemic oppression and past hurt is BS and it's not going to move anything forward.
I also appreciate that her answer is to take action to help others. More pontificating isn't needed. Action is.